Outdoors: Sweden seeking solutions for wolves

Monday

Dec 2, 2013 at 6:00 AMDec 4, 2013 at 12:07 AM

Mark Blazis Outdoors

I recently returned from a moose and wolf study in the vast pine-spruce forests surrounding the Grimso Wildlife Research Station in Sweden.Austria's Swarovski Optik, manufacturers of the world's finest binoculars and rifle-scopes is heavily invested in wildlife conservation.

They invited wildlife experts, film-makers and photographers from all over the world to participate in the event. For those of us who barely knew the difference between a Krona and a Corona, Sweden held many surprises – but also presented wildlife problems Americans are quite familiar with.

Fishing, hunting, food, and bird watching are superb in Sweden.Salmon, brown trout, and pike-perch swim even in the middle of Stockholm where Lake Malaren flows between Parliament and the Royal Palace. Anglers regularly catch them in front of strolling tourists.

A chef noticing my appreciation for venison gave me his wonderful wild-game marinade which, which I hope to try this fall. It simply consisted of equal proportions of dark beer and soy sauce, refrigerated for 24 hours. While it was magical for native roe deer, I was promised it would be wonderful for our white-tails.

I love hunting dogs, and much appreciated seeing two breeds that are uncommon here: the Norwegian elkhound (elk in Europe means moose) and the little Finspitz. The former was historically used in packs, sometimes with plott hounds, to chase and encircle a moose, allowing hunters to catch up and dispatch it; the latter is a hyperactive bird dog currently trained to flush capercaille, the biggest game bird and most prized avian trophy of Eurasia. As the turkey-sized bird lands in a tree nearby, the Finspitz looks constantly upward until he finds it and marks its presence with excited jumps and high-pitched barks.

While Sweden is markedly different – they don't wear baseball caps, for example – we have much in common, and I'm not talking just about Worcester street names like Upsala and Rydberg Terrace.

Sweden has wildlife problems, too. Invasive species like the raccoon dog have come in, preying excessively on native wetland bird nests. Cranes, geese, and wild boar cause considerable crop damage, the cranes notably impacting potato crops. But the problem of most concern there now is wolves.

Until 1983, there were few wolves in Sweden. Swedes had successfully extirpated their wolves just as we Americans had eradicated most of ours. So the huge, fresh tracks we came upon and followed were very exciting.

Wolves differ considerably from dogs. Anatomically, their proportionately narrower shoulders allow their front and back legs to swing in the same line. If you follow running dog tracks, you'll note hind tracks form between foreleg tracks. When a wolf runs, its hind feet instead go into the tracks of its front feet. We knew right away we weren't following giant dogs.

The tracks led us to freshly stripped and bare white rib bones, separated hooves, and scattered hair of a moose, whose population is huge in Sweden. With plenty food and considerable protection, wolves have gradually snuck in from Russia and Finland and prospered. They now number about 400,000. Just like in Montana, not everyone is happy with their resurgence.

While native Americans loved and admired them – they'd give 40 beaver blankets for one black wolf pelt - Europeans united in a virtual war to destroy them. In Massachusetts, from the very beginning, colonists wouldn't tolerate their numerous and ubiquitous presence. While wolves were taking spawning fish in the spring and large numbers of deer throughout the year, Pilgrims were appalled that they were losing domestic puppies that were carried off from their settlements to feed cubs at their dens. Worse,the wolves soon learned to kill the colonists' livestock.

By 1631, the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies were offering 20-shilling bounties for them. By the 1840s, wolves were wiped out of Massachusetts. One very lone, migratory wolf found roaming Berkshire County was shot as late as 1918 in New Marlborough. They've been effectively kept out of the Commonwealth ever since.

Just as their pelage varies from black to sandy to white, public attitudes about them range from ecstatic acceptance to tolerance, and violent rejection. As their population expands again in Sweden, they're coming into increasing conflict with people.

For wolf lovers who find their nocturnal howls both chilling and thrilling, their arrival is a long-awaited event to celebrate. But to sheep farmers and moose hunters, their presence is costly and competitive. Swedish sheep farmers are now forced to erect 5-wire electric fences to effectively protect their stock. The arrival of our local coyotes not many decades ago reflects much of Sweden's evolving wolf drama.

A coyote pack howls almost every night in the forest around my Cape Cod home. It gets my Brittany barking and unnerves guests and neighbors. Nothing sounds more wild than their calls at a kill.

Coyotes have prospered here, and though they haven't affected Massachusetts livestock populations to any serious degree, we can attribute the disappearance of many a straying house cat to their presence. And most local white tail hunters are convinced coyotes are taking too many fawns here, as well. How much place we give them in our society is as much a people question as it is a wildlife question.

In Montana, with a population of about 625 wolves, which are regarded as a plague by ranchers as well as deer and elk hunters, wolves have been drastically culled. Last year, 128 wolves were shot by hunters, 97 were trapped, and the state eliminated 104 more.

How Sweden handles their wolf expansion is a strategy in progress, one that will be much influenced by current studies, as well as by politics and money. But in the northern reindeer zone,the case is settled. Where Laps depend on herding their domestic, free-ranging deer for their livelihood,all wolves are legally eliminated whenever they appear. The Lap's reindeer zone is a no-howl zone as lynx, bear, and wolverines additionally combine to kill about 30,000 reindeer each year, for which the government, seeking to preserve its predators, is obliged to pay compensation.

How much wolf shooting will be permitted in the rest of Sweden? If most moose hunters had their way, they'd take the Montana approach and kill every wolf they could. Their reaction is largely overblown but not without some justification.

The base population of moose in Sweden is about 300,000 – four times the Newfoundland population. Each year about 100,000 are born – and a hundred thousand are killed. The system is in balance. Roughly 10,000 are killed by wolves and vehicular collisions, while 90 percent are killed by hunters. Wolf kills play a relatively small role in the overall control of Sweden's moose. But some hunters severely feel the impact of a wolf pack that resides in their territory.

There is also a fairly prevalent fear of wolves that I sensed both from the city and the country. It partly originates from childhood tales of big bad wolves – as well as true stories of hundreds of children in eastern Asia actually being killed by them.

Although there have been no Scandinavian wolves killing people, the fear factor keeps these magnificent canids from winning critically more important friends. Wolf hunting may consequently play a much greater role there in the future, just as it now does in the States.

While we once had wolves in Worcester, we're not likely to ever see them here again. Development has eliminated too much habitat. But It would not be surprising to one day see wolves return to moose and deer rich New England. If enough of them make it over the border from Canada and the Adirondacks, we're going to be faced with the same dilemma Sweden now faces. Considering how so many of us are intolerant of much less threatening coyotes, I can't envision us ever readily welcoming wolves. When natural predators compete with us, they're going to lose – and that may not be all to our credit.